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I've just discovered MCC's very comprehensive and handy internal record tracking (as oppose to staring at a list of 600 achievements). If anyone's in the mood for more Halo 4, I'm short the par score for Forerunner and Requiem, and it's kind of tedious to do it yourself.

So, question: Does anyone else try to visit the Xbox website for one reason or another unrelated to their account-- say, looking up the list of backwards compatible games, for example-- and are forced to log in first? That always seems to happen to me.

And then, if so, do you have to enter your password not once, but twice? I've even gone so far as to type it elsewhere and paste it in each time, to the same result: First time tells me it's wrong, the second time works.

So, question: Does anyone else try to visit the Xbox website for one reason or another unrelated to their account-- say, looking up the list of backwards compatible games, for example-- and are forced to log in first? That always seems to happen to me.

And then, if so, do you have to enter your password not once, but twice? I've even gone so far as to type it elsewhere and paste it in each time, to the same result: First time tells me it's wrong, the second time works.

Of everything Xbox, I think I find this the most irritating.

I actually encounter that with the Steam website--despite logging my PC in repeatedly, I have to put in my password every time. It might be due to security settings or my browser.

Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate: it always was a bit hard to go back to, even when it first came out, but that's okay. It only really exists as a historical curio, very much a case of "from little acorns". I enjoyed a lot of PS1 fighting games, famous and otherwise, but honestly DOA felt a bit unremarkable even back then. If you'd told me then that the series would later become one of my favourites, I'd never have believed you.

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate: unlike the port of 1, this was a full-on remake and the main event of DOAU that, while revisiting DOA3's predecessor, also managed to at least equal 3, itself still an impressive game at that point (and, I'd argue, even now). I don't like the rejigged countering system, and being a remake of 2 it omits a few moves introduced in 3 that I miss having in my arsenal, but it's still pretty great. Fantastic selection of stages, too; I'd love to see more of them revisited in newer games (some did show up in Dimensions on the 3DS).

Far Cry 3: I picked up from my old save about halfway through the game, and had to figure out an unmapped route to a radio tower over a big ridge. I quickly got over the controls feeling a little clunkier than I remember, and driving and shooting felt good, but its ambition was showing up the 360's age a bit (nearly 8 years old by that point). I may one day just revisit it on PC instead, but right now I've got FC5 to play on there.

Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate: it always was a bit hard to go back to, even when it first came out, but that's okay. It only really exists as a historical curio, very much a case of "from little acorns". I enjoyed a lot of PS1 fighting games, famous and otherwise, but honestly DOA felt a bit unremarkable even back then. If you'd told me then that the series would later become one of my favourites, I'd never have believed you.

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate: unlike the port of 1, this was a full-on remake and the main event of DOAU that, while revisiting DOA3's predecessor, also managed to at least equal 3, itself still an impressive game at that point (and, I'd argue, even now). I don't like the rejigged countering system, and being a remake of 2 it omits a few moves introduced in 3 that I miss having in my arsenal, but it's still pretty great. Fantastic selection of stages, too; I'd love to see more of them revisited in newer games (some did show up in Dimensions on the 3DS).

There's really not a lot of reason to revisit DOA1 in any form, aside from as an object of curiosity or nostalgia, for the same reason there's really not much reason to look back at the original Tekken or Soul Edge. These are extremely rough games in a very early era of 3D anywhere, much less somewhat underpowered consoles that were the necessary kickstart to 3D gaming. At least with Virtua Fighter there is an unquestionably historical value, but that's still not something everyone cars about. "But I like Tekken!" Sure, why wouldn't you? That's completely interchangeable with "But I like Dead or Alive." If you like a particular game there's always a reason to revisit it....but for everyone else, it's a harder proposition.

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate on the other hand....yeah, not only is it a complete engine upgrade with online support (well, not anymore, unless you do some tricky tunneling), DOA2 "vanilla" introduced two hugely important features that actually helped DOA stand out from the growing field of 3D fighters (this is also something Tekken had to get around to with its sequels): tag-team, and complex fighting stages with true environmental hazards (though of course, not at the same time). DOA2, hands down, had the best tag team four-player support of any home 3D fighter when it came out...and quite possibly until Dead or Alive 3 came out (sorry, Tekken Tag Tournament...but even if you were as good, how many people actually had the PS2 multitap?). For a game as rough as DOA2 is, it works really well and was clearly the focus of Team Ninja's development. If you never took advantage of it (despite the Xbox having 4 controller support), you really missed out...but at least you have arguably the best looking 3D fighter until the launch of the Xbox 360 (SoulCalibur II, which I still really love, really came up short in the visuals department).

But DOA2U is still an old game--even if playing it on Xbox 360, it feels like you're playing an original Xbox title, and not a Dreamcast game, to its credit. The lack of post-launch balancing is pretty evident. The roster is problematically small, even with the addition of Hitomi (and bringing back Bayman). It could really benefit from the massive resolution boost+forced antialiasing that we see with original Xbox titles on Xbox One.

It is technically superior to DOA3, though I personally prefer the DOA3 gameplay being not quite so heavily weighed towards reversals (plus, Christie). When DOA2U came out, I actually continued playing DOA3 right up to the Xbox 360 launch, but not nearly as much.

EDIT: Fun fact (not)--for me, DOA was a Sega Saturn game, though each platform had advantages and disadvantages.

I had an empty artifact box on Rise that kept me from getting the 100% cheevo when I played through it on PC. One of the few times I’ve loaded up Steam Achievement Manager.

Also one of the very few games I’ve felt compelled to try to collect everything in. I REALLY liked Rise.

I do too, but I'm one of those people that felt Shadow did everything I did like in Rise better, on top of being a much more interesting environment (I used to say: "What do all the worst levels in games have in common, regardless of genre? Correct, they're all set in underground ice tunnels.") I put off finishing Rise of the Tomb Raider for almost a year because of it (not realizing I was about 20 minutes from the conclusion), before hastily finishing it and beginning it again on Xbox One X.

I've uninstalled it because it's just so damn big (Shadow is substantially more space efficient), but in a better world, I'd fully intend to 100% it the same way I did for Tomb Raider on XB1.

Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate: it always was a bit hard to go back to, even when it first came out, but that's okay. It only really exists as a historical curio, very much a case of "from little acorns". I enjoyed a lot of PS1 fighting games, famous and otherwise, but honestly DOA felt a bit unremarkable even back then. If you'd told me then that the series would later become one of my favourites, I'd never have believed you.

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate: unlike the port of 1, this was a full-on remake and the main event of DOAU that, while revisiting DOA3's predecessor, also managed to at least equal 3, itself still an impressive game at that point (and, I'd argue, even now). I don't like the rejigged countering system, and being a remake of 2 it omits a few moves introduced in 3 that I miss having in my arsenal, but it's still pretty great. Fantastic selection of stages, too; I'd love to see more of them revisited in newer games (some did show up in Dimensions on the 3DS).

There's really not a lot of reason to revisit DOA1 in any form, aside from as an object of curiosity or nostalgia, for the same reason there's really not much reason to look back at the original Tekken or Soul Edge. These are extremely rough games in a very early era of 3D anywhere, much less somewhat underpowered consoles that were the necessary kickstart to 3D gaming. At least with Virtua Fighter there is an unquestionably historical value, but that's still not something everyone cars about. "But I like Tekken!" Sure, why wouldn't you? That's completely interchangeable with "But I like Dead or Alive." If you like a particular game there's always a reason to revisit it....but for everyone else, it's a harder proposition.

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate on the other hand....yeah, not only is it a complete engine upgrade with online support (well, not anymore, unless you do some tricky tunneling), DOA2 "vanilla" introduced two hugely important features that actually helped DOA stand out from the growing field of 3D fighters (this is also something Tekken had to get around to with its sequels): tag-team, and complex fighting stages with true environmental hazards (though of course, not at the same time). DOA2, hands down, had the best tag team four-player support of any home 3D fighter when it came out...and quite possibly until Dead or Alive 3 came out (sorry, Tekken Tag Tournament...but even if you were as good, how many people actually had the PS2 multitap?). For a game as rough as DOA2 is, it works really well and was clearly the focus of Team Ninja's development. If you never took advantage of it (despite the Xbox having 4 controller support), you really missed out...but at least you have arguably the best looking 3D fighter until the launch of the Xbox 360 (SoulCalibur II, which I still really love, really came up short in the visuals department).

But DOA2U is still an old game--even if playing it on Xbox 360, it feels like you're playing an original Xbox title, and not a Dreamcast game, to its credit. The lack of post-launch balancing is pretty evident. The roster is problematically small, even with the addition of Hitomi (and bringing back Bayman). It could really benefit from the massive resolution boost+forced antialiasing that we see with original Xbox titles on Xbox One.

It is technically superior to DOA3, though I personally prefer the DOA3 gameplay being not quite so heavily weighed towards reversals (plus, Christie). When DOA2U came out, I actually continued playing DOA3 right up to the Xbox 360 launch, but not nearly as much.

EDIT: Fun fact (not)--for me, DOA was a Sega Saturn game, though each platform had advantages and disadvantages.

Lots of "I agree" here... just to clarify I haven't had DOAU to hand for years (for reasons, I had to start my OG Xbox collection from scratch some years ago), and only just got a used copy off eBay for less than the price of a beer.

I expected no more of DOA1U. Basically the same as when DOAU first came out. It almost seems an extravagance for the game to have its own disc; I haven't looked but it seems unlikely that there wouldn't be room for it to fit on the same disc as DOA2U. I did have a Saturn (most underrated console ever, it was awesome especially in its late period), but fighting games, especially 3D ones, tended to be a thing I played with a friend on his PS1 before I eventually got my own. The genre was one of our go-to's and we went through so many of them, be they good, bad, or ugly: the Battle Arena Toshindens, the Tekkens, the Bushido Blades, Soul Blade (Edge), the Tobals, Rival Schools, Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi, etc, etc. Which reminds me, I must track down another copy of Star Gladiator one day. I remember quite enjoying that little obscurity... Anyway, yeah. Funny thing, DOA1 actually got online support in the DOAU release too. I can't imagine it ever saw much use! Frankly the game wasn't a standout when it first came out in 1996, and time had already not been kind to it by 2004. But, like I said, "from little acorns..."

I missed DOA2 the first time around as it wasn't until later that I acquired both a Dreamcast and a PS2. It struck me as a strange choice at the time for Team Ninja to remake DOA2, but DOA3 had been such a huge breakout hit for the Xbox, at least by Xbox standards; and at that point Team Ninja and Xbox were firmly in bed together, so perhaps it sprung from "get the entire franchise in this one place". Whatever the reasoning, it was a very good game, just one that fell a little short of DOA3 (for me) almost entirely by virtue of the change to counters. I can forgive the missing characters since original DOA2 didn't have them either, as much as I missed the likes of Christie; but as my biggest mains in DOA3 had become Tina and Helena, both still present in DOA2U, it didn't hurt me as much as it did some others. That said, Tina suffers quite a bit from missing certain moves that were added in 3.

I honestly can't remember if we ever got enough people in the same place to take advantage of the 4-player tag. By that point most of my friends (and colleagues) who I'd often played DOA3 with had either lost touch or simply moved on...

I don't remember Soul Calibur II not being up to snuff graphically; on the contrary, I always remembered it as a handsome game. Even the last time I gave it a spin on XBLA I'm sure it looked alright. But you know, anything struggled visually next to DOA3. That game looked a generation ahead of everything in 2001, and did it while moving fluidly and fast, and being a great game with it. As far as I'm concerned, it's a bona fide classic. (Literally the only thing I don't like about it is Genra/Omega, but everybody hates him.) I carried on playing it after DOA2U hit, and still played it even after DOA4 did. I'm glad it's BC on 360 but I'd hook up my Xbox to play it if it wasn't.

Also, I honestly can't remember if I played more than a bout or two online. Not just of DOA, but of any fighting game. This genre suffers probably more than any other from even the slightest hint of lag. To this day I'd rather just play against the AI if I haven't got a local opponent.

My biggest beef about DoA online - I am given to understand that this applies to most fighting games, really - is that there's no way to just tell the game "I would like to fight another player" and have it go out and find another player for me to fight. You can sorta do this in ranked (but anyone higher ranked than you will decline the match) but otherwise it's find a public lobby waiting your turn and watching other people play.

So with the recent attention brought to titan fall the xbox player base is around 8k now . Much easier to find a game , also since I started playing again I’ve found my true love legion. Just shoot everyone and everything and then keep shooting.

I'm curious how one develops a skill at DOA. I mean, the basis is a form of rock-paper-scissors, right?

Is it like a frame-studying thing so you know how to counter? I'm not much good at that, so I'm not sure how to become better -- my more advanced victories (ie beating the earlier games) basically amounts to button-mashing (or close enough, with random attacks) and just hoping for the best -- not my preferred way to win, much less play.

My biggest beef about DoA online - I am given to understand that this applies to most fighting games, really - is that there's no way to just tell the game "I would like to fight another player" and have it go out and find another player for me to fight. You can sorta do this in ranked (but anyone higher ranked than you will decline the match) but otherwise it's find a public lobby waiting your turn and watching other people play.

Not sure why this became the prevailing model for online fighters.

It's annoying, but as I remember, I had enough anxiety about confronting players online that I didn't mind the lobby system. "Oh, I just want to play a quick round," usually implied playing with someone locally or even just against the AI in survival mode, etc.

In the lead up to SoulCalibur II's release, Namco--at least in regards to the Xbox, which had shockingly not been discontinued as the internet had promised--did suggest they'd release a technically superior game to DOA3 (and this was the age of heavy reliance of "bullshots", both for Namco and Team Ninja, and others). I recall that the Xbox release was, in fact, visually superior to the other versions (I think the Gamecube also came close to the promise of a locked framerate), it did have to compete with what Team Ninja was producing. Really, they dropped the ball on the fighting arenas which are much less impressive than anything in DOA3 (character designs are much more subjective I think). I need to look at a resolution comparison between the three releases.

I'm curious how one develops a skill at DOA. I mean, the basis is a form of rock-paper-scissors, right?

Is it like a frame-studying thing so you know how to counter? I'm not much good at that, so I'm not sure how to become better -- my more advanced victories (ie beating the earlier games) basically amounts to button-mashing (or close enough, with random attacks) and just hoping for the best -- not my preferred way to win, much less play.

I assume it wasn't that different from gaining experience with other 3D fighters--albeit faster ones. Figuring out the "proper" response to an attack, whether it be dodging (I suppose DOA is technically more dodging-enabling than some other games, since you can more actively duck beneath characters and character height makes a difference). Reversals are important as they're so powerful, and quite a few of them lead into other opportunities for attacks. Then there's the level geometry--kind of like Smash Brothers, some areas are full of huge, easily exploitable zones, for damage, forcing your enemy to reposition. DOA3 was the only title where a environmental damage itself could cause a KO, all subsequent titles removed that.

In SoulCalibur VI, I think, you can basically dodge facing backwards--as long as you're holding block, and you're at the right altitude. Your character "autocorrects" into the right direction--or at least, I remember that the last time I was in the soulgrinding mode. DOA was and is more stance based--a few characters have shifting stances (so do a few SC characters), and others, like Ayane, actually having much more powerful variations of many of their attacks/grabs when their back is facing the enemy. But you can't block that way, only counter.

And yeah, button mashing is the entry strategy to every 3D fighter, and possibly any fighting game in general (you can probably mash your way to some effect in Smash Brothers too). Games penalize that sooner or later--in DOA, it's the fact that counters/reversals are so much more damaging than normal strikes (and even combos) that even with a faster, 3 or 4 reversals alone will put you out of the round.

Having walked him through the MCC (for the first time), a friend and I settled on Sea of Thieves as our next weekly multiplayer game. I had reservations--I hadn't really argued for the game so much as defended it when he said a programming friend of his from work called it "Nightmarishly" short of content at launch, and I argued that if Sea of Thieves was nightmarish, what did that make another game I proposed, No Man's Sky, which outright lied and misrepresented things like "multiplayer" at launch. I argued stronger for For Honor, which we'd already played, or Halo 5, which we were going to play inevitably.

Somehow, he actually really warmed up to Sea of Thieves, and signed up for the free two weeks of Gamepass (and I renewed mine for $2). I thought before we played tonight, I'd run the game once just to make sure everything was in working order.

Me: Cortana, play "Sea of Thieves."Cortana: ...playing "Sea of Thieves" playlist on iHeartRadio.

Weird, I think. Better do a hard restart and recalibrate Kinect, I was overdue anyway.

Me: Cortana, start the game Sea of Thieves.Cortana: ...a Certified financial planner, or "CFP", is a type of qualification that are used by accounts to...Me: No...play, "Sea of Thieves"!Cortana: ...you can make your own playlists with a Spotify subscription. In the meantime, I'll create a "Sea of Thieves" playlist in iHeartRadio.Me: GodDAMN it! No, I mean play the...arg!

I go to manually load the game.

Except it's not there. It failed to install this morning when I left for work, possibly due to lack of space.

...

So I set the game to install (I'm downloading it 105 mb/s...not bad, Xbox Live, considering my connection is officially 100 mb/s down).